AIChE Annual Meeting 2023 in Orlando

The AIChE - American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting is the perfect place to meet, celebrate our colleagues, make new friends, and get the latest chemical engineering progress from up-and-coming talent and renowned experts. 

Prof Marc-Olivier Coppens, Ms Maria Mourkou and Dr Matthew Chin, all from the NICE Group at the CNIE, presented work at the conference.

PhD student Maria Mourkou presented her latest work on the direct experimental evaluation of the effects of complex pore geometries on Knudsen diffusion. Postdoctoral researcher Dr Matthew Chin presented his work on "Algorithmic Design of Lymph Node-Inspired 3D Microprinted Cell Scaffolds", which had just been accepted for publication in Biotechnology Journal that morning. Prof Marc-Olivier Coppens also presented on behalf of his PhD student Shuxian Jiang and former NICE student Dr Kaiqiao Wu (unfortunately, both could not attend) work on heat transfer in dynamically structured fluidised beds.

We celebrated Dr Ray Cocco (Particles in Motion and former President of PSRI) for his very much deserved PTF (Particle Technology Forum) Elsevier Lifetime Achievement Award; Ray has been an inspiration, friend, and long-time advisor on the CNIE Advisory Board. In his honour, Marc-Olivier shared our new work on regular pattern formation in pulsed annular fluidised beds, a related paper on which has just appeared in a Special Issue of Powder Technology. Many thanks to Prof Jia Wei Chew (Chalmers University) and Prof Alissa Park (UCLA) for organising this excellent session.

We also celebrated 30 years of PTF: wonderful to look back and forward. Here, Marc-Olivier presented some European perspectives on the PTF's international importance with helpful input from Professors John Yates (UCL Chemical Engineering), Raffaella Ocone (Heriot-Watt University), Sotiris Pratsinis (ETH), Filip Johnsson and David Pallarès (Chalmers), Ruud van Ommen and Gabrie Meesters (TU Delft), Stefan Heinrich and Joachim Werther (TUHH), Karl-Ernst Wirth (FAU), and Juray De Wilde (Louvain). Furthermore, there was an excellent session to honour Prof LS Fan's (The Ohio State University) immense contributions as an inspiring innovator and educator, for which he received the AIChE Warren K Lewis Award. This was also an opportunity to enjoy many other sessions, including those of the AIChE Catalysis & Reaction Engineering Division, on which Marc-Olivier serves as International Director for the Board. One session featured talented pioneers in a great early-career celebration session.

Heartbreaking was a session in honour of Daniel Lepek (The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art), who passed away much too early. There with touching testimonies from friends and colleagues; Marc-Olivier reflected on Daniel's impact, as they had conducted a WCPT workshop in Orlando in 2018 and launched the NICE course together during his sabbatical at UCL Chemical Engineering in 2015. He will be remembered.